The University of Wyoming is finalizing a salary policy to standardize the way pay raises are awarded for faculty and especially staff, many of whom are making significantly less than they would at other institutions, businesses and state agencies, according to university reports.
The new policy dictates 60 percent of funds available for raises be committed to bringing salaries more in line with the “market” value, while the remaining 40 percent be saved for meritocratic raises.
Previously, raises could be determined by individual deans and directors, Staff Senate President Rachel Stevens said.
“Oftentimes, it would be some mix of merit and market, but that wasn’t standard and there was no consensus from year to year on how you would figure out what the market and merit are,” she said. “So, it would just kind of be ad-hoc each year.”
The UW Board of Trustees approved the policy during its March meeting, but not specific salary recommendations, which could be brought forward during the board’s next meeting in May.
The board’s three-day May meeting will be preceded by two days of hearings, during which various university entities will present their budgets for fiscal year 2019.
Associate Vice President for Human Resources Jeanne Durr writes via email she and UW General Counsel Tara Evans are working to finalize the actual text of the policy now.
While the policy addresses both faculty and staff, the latter have more consistently felt the consequences of the outdated salary policy, Faculty Senate Chair Michael Barker said.
“There are areas within the university where we have faculty that have some market value issues, but not at the level that our staff have,” he said. “The 60 percent that goes toward market adjustment certainly would be applicable to both staff and faculty, and the administration will be able to make some headway in taking care of some of those discrepancies.”
In June, Staff Senate compiled a report on staff compensation for UW President Laurie Nichols. The report found 83 percent of staff made less than those at other state agencies with similar job responsibilities. Among all UW staff for whom comparators could be identified, salaries were on average 13 percent lower at UW than other agencies.
“One of the things that we pointed out was the staff salary matrix, which determines all of the classified staff salaries — where you start and how far you can move up — has not been updated since 2009,” Stevens said. “It was put together in 2008 and approved in 2009, so really, it’s 10 years old now. And that’s still what staff salaries are coming off of.”
The report recommends updating the matrix — which factors in market and merit increases — and to update it biannually thereafter, stating the process of evaluating staff salaries should be “iterative” rather than one with a fixed completion date.
Despite outstanding issues with the staff performance evaluations that determine merit, Stevens said the policy is taking UW in the right direction.
“Having this salary policy is a huge step forward,” she said. “It’s a big improvement over what we had before.”
Barker agreed.
“This is a good thing for UW,” he said. “We’ll be able to address some of these market issues with our staff, and we will still be able to reward staff and faculty for meritorious job performance.”
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